30.09.2018

Farewell to Khan al-Ahmar, Hello to Yet Another Crime Against Humanity for Israel

Israeli occupation forces declared the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank, a closed military zone Friday ahead of its demolition. Local news agency Ma’an reported that Israeli forces closed all roads leading to the village, preventing Palestinians, international activists, and journalists from entering and exiting the village.

The declaration of Khan al-Ahmar, which lies between two illegal Israeli settlements (Ma’ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim), as a closed military zone comes after the Israeli Civil Administration ordered the residents of Khan al-Ahmar to demolish their own homes and evacuate the area before the start of October.

According to the villagers and Israeli anti-occupation groups, the demolition seeks to create territorial continuity between these two settlements and connect them with the occupied city of Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its capital despite international law.

The Bedouin people of the Jahalin tribe, who settled in these lands after they were expelled from the Negev desert in the 1950s, have resisted previous attempts to forcibly displace them and vowed to remain in their lands and face Israeli bulldozers. Israeli authorities have planned to relocate Khan al-Ahmar's 181 residents to a location near Abu Dis, where there used to be a garbage dump.

The villagers have refused, arguing health hazards and that the location is not suitable for their way of life. According to Khan al-Ahmar residents, Bedouins who have been previously moved to the proposed location have warned them not to go there.

On Sept., 23, Israeli soldiers delivered letters to the village’s resident stating: "By the High Court decision you must demolish all buildings within the Khan al-Ahmar no later than 1 October 2018. … If you refuse, the authorities will enforce demolition orders as per court decision and the law."

The decision to demolish the village and displace its inhabitants has been rejected by European countries and human rights groups who have warned Israel this action amounts to a war crime. International humanitarian law prohibits “collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory.”

Israeli authorities have justified their decision saying the village was illegally built because they lacked Israeli-issued building permits, which are nearly impossible to obtain for Palestinians. According to U.N. figures, Israel approved only 1.5 percent of all permit requests by Palestinians between 2010 and 2014.

Khan al-Ahmar is sandwiched between two major Israeli settlements, Kfar Adumim and Ma’ale Adumim. If the government does succeed in removing the villagers, it could create a giant block of settlements physically separating Jerusalem from Palestinians in the West Bank.

[Note: since there is NO chance Israel will NOT succeed - who is going to lift a finger to stop them? - I would rewrite that last sentence with When and will. And re the permit thing: About one month ago, the Jerusalem District Court ruled to legalize Mitzpe Kramim, an unauthorized Israeli outpost in the West Bank. In an unprecedented legal tactic, the Jerusalem court ruled that the Mitzpe Kramim settlers erected their community “in good faith,” and granted them rights to the property.Both Mitzpe Kramim and Khan al-Ahmar were built without the necessary permits – Mitzpe Kramim on privately owned Palestinian land, Khan al-Ahmar on so-called state (public) land that was confiscated from Palestinian landowners from Anata in 1975 (the question as to whether the government completed the plot’s registration as state land came up in proceedings). Both communities requested that their civilian structures be legalized retroactively. Obviously the fact that only Mitzpe Kramim was built “in good faith” tells you all you need to know. Oh, by the way, there are an estimated 13,000 Palestinian structures facing demolition orders in the occupied West Bank. Sources for this post are an email from Jewish Voices for Peace, TeleSur, +972, and Vice. The Guardian, the BBC and a number of Israeli sources including The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, as well as Al-Jazeera also report on it. So don't tell me this is not real. And before you sneer about the bias of the sources I use, tell me why there is NO REPORTAGE ABOUT THIS AT ALL IN THE US NEWS (except for a 4-line bit from about a week ago in the Washington Post, a 2-line bit from Reuters, also from a week ago, neither of which is reportage in any sense of the word), and then we can talk about bias ...]